Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Taprobane Sahana Edition

Started remastering Taprobane GNU/Linux to include the Sahana phase I as a LiveCD. Taprobane has a really neat feature which makes remastering quite easy just by running few make commands. For example, to customize the ISO image, all one needs to do is execute # make chroot

That will drop you to a chrooted environment, sometimes referred to as a chrooted jail!, because you get trapped inside a directory (well atleast till you type exit in this case). Once in jail, you are free to install/remove packages before getting out using the exit command. Once that's done, remastering is as easy as ..# make iso (or even just make)

After about 20 minutes, it will produce a freshly baked iso image that's ready to be served on a CD platter :)

But....thats just how it's supposed to work ;). Perhaps due to the manner in which I went about remastering, there were some challenges (one of the thing I picked up from the Brent Woodworth, who is the head of IBM's Crisis Response Team, was not to use the word problem!). I managed to figure out most of them but there are a few more that needs to be ironed out tomorrow.

Other than work, I just came back from a heavy meal at one of the most beautiful hotels in Islamabad, known as Serina. The whole scale of the hotel, not to mention the hill like landscape and its romantic candle lit dinner was just wonderful. The food we chose to consume was from an Arabic menu (they initially offered us an american steak menu), and was a quite large portion. Dinner was quite educational as far as learning about mitigation and dealing with an Earth Quake. For example, one of the useful tips I learned, that I hope to apply, is to scream and swear at the ground at tell it to stop shaking!!! Apparently that can help you prevent any phycological trauma that one might incur as a result of a violent quake.

If it wasn't for the last capuchino, I probably wouldn't have made it post dinner. Ashif and Rizwan, two IBM colleges came back to my room and we did manage to get some work till 1:30 AM. They are gone now, and so am I.

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About Me

I enjoy working on interesting and challenging products that have the potential to change the world. I love thinking about technology and how it can positively transform society. Specializes in Web / Cloud Apps, LAMP, Linux Dev Ops & other Open Source Technologies.

Besides technology I enjoy geeking out to gaming, photography, rocking to all genera of music from Jazz to Techno and watching Anime!